The French are, paradoxically, strongly conscious of belonging to a single nation, but they hardly constitute a unified ethnic group by any scientific gauge. Before the official discovery of the Americas at the end of the 15th century, France, located on the western extremity of the Old World, was regarded for centuries by Europeans as being near the edge of the known world. Generations of different migrants traveling by way of the Mediterranean from the Middle East and Africa and through Europe from Central Asia and the Nordic lands settled permanently in France, forming a variegated grouping, almost like a series of geologic strata, since they were unable to migrate any farther. Perhaps the oldest reflection of these migrations is furnished by the Basque people, who live in an isolated area west of the Pyrenees in both Spain and France, who speak a language unrelated to other European languages, and whose origin remains unclear. The Celtic tribes, known to the Romans as Gauls, spread from central Europe in the period 500 BC–AD 500 to provide France with a major component of its population, especially in the centre and west. At the fall of the Roman Empire, there was a powerful penetration of Germanic (Teutonic) peoples, especially in northern and eastern France. The incursion of the Norsemen (Vikings) brought further Germanic influence. In addition to these many migrations, France was, over the centuries, the field of numerous battles and of prolonged occupations before becoming, in the 19th and especially in the 20th century, the prime recipient of foreign immigration into Europe, adding still other mixtures to the ethnic melting pot.

Languages

French is the national language, spoken and taught everywhere. Brogues and dialects are widespread in rural areas, however, and many people tend to conserve their regional linguistic customs either through tradition or through a voluntary and deliberate return to a specific regional dialect. This tendency is strongest in the frontier areas of France. In the eastern and northern part of the country, Alsatian and Flemish (NetherlandicDutch) are related to the Germanic languages; in the south, Occitan (Provençal or Languedoc), Corsican, and Catalan show the influence of Latin. Breton is a Celtic language related to languages spoken in some western parts of the British Isles (notably Wales), and Basque is a language isolate. Following the introduction of universal primary education during the Third Republic in 1872, the use of regional languages was rigorously repressed in the interest of national unity, and pupils using them were punished. More recently, in reaction to the rise in regional sentiment, these languages have been introduced in a number of schools and universities, primarily because some of them, such as Occitan, Basque, and Breton, have maintained a literary tradition. Recent immigration has introduced various non-European languages, notably Arabic.

Religion

About three-fourths of the French people belong to the Roman Catholic church. Only a minority, however, regularly participate in religious worship; practice is greatest among the middle classes. The northwest (Brittany-Vendée), the east (Lorraine, Vosges, Alsace, Jura, Lyonnais, and the northern Alps), the north (Flanders), the Basque Country, and the region south of the Massif Central have a higher percentage of practicing Roman Catholics than the rest of the country. Recruitment of priests has become more difficult, even though the church, historically autonomous, is very progressive and ecumenical.

Reflecting the presence of immigrants from North Africa, Algeria, and Morocco, France has one of Europe’s largest Muslim populations: more than 4,000,000 Muslims, a sizable percentage of them living in and around Marseille in southeastern France, as well as in Paris and Lyon. Protestants, who number 700,000, belong to several different denominations. They are numerous in Alsace, in the northern Jura, in the southeastern Massif Central, and in the central Atlantic region. There are more than 700,000 adherents of Judaism, concentrated in greater Paris, Marseille, and Alsace and the large eastern towns. In addition to the religious groups, there also are several societies of freethinkers, of which the most famous is the French Masonry. Large numbers, however, especially among the working classes and young population, profess no religious belief. In 2004 the government banned head scarves (used by Muslims) and other religious symbols in state schools.

Settlement patterns

Rural landscape and settlement

Centuries of human adaptation of the various environments of France have produced varied patterns of rural landscape. Scholars have traditionally made an initial contrast between areas of enclosed land (bocage), usually associated with zones of high rainfall and heavy soils, and areas of open-field land (campagne), generally associated with level and well-drained plains and plateaus. Two other patterns have evolved in the Mediterranean region and in the mountains.

Bocage

In its classic form, bocage is found in Brittany, where small fields are surrounded by drainage ditches and high earthen banks, from which grow impenetrable hedges arching over narrow sunken lanes. Similarly enclosed land is found elsewhere, however, notably on the northern, western, and southern fringes of the Paris Basin, such as in Normandy, as well as in the western and northern parts of the Massif Central, parts of Aquitaine, and the Pyrenean region. At higher levels hedges may be replaced by stone walls. Settlement mostly takes the form of hamlets and isolated farms.

Open-field

The greatest extent of open-field land is found in the Paris Basin and in northern and eastern France, but there are pockets of it elsewhere. The landscape typically lacks hedges or fences; instead, the bewildering pattern of small strips and blocks of land is defined by small boundary stones. The land of one farmer may be dispersed in parcels scattered over a wide area. The land is predominantly arable, and the farmsteads are traditionally grouped into villages, which may be irregularly clustered or, as in Lorraine, linear in form.

Mediterranean

The generally block-shaped Mediterranean lowland parcels normally are not enclosed or are enclosed only by rough stone banks. However, in areas where delicate crops would be exposed to wind damage, there are screens of willows and tall reeds. Hillsides are frequently terraced, although much of this land type has been abandoned except in areas of intensive cultivation, such as the flower-growing region around Grasse. A very large farmhouse built on three floors is characteristic of wine-growing and sheep-raising regions, such as Provence. Rural population was formerly often clustered at high elevations, both for defense and in order to be above the malarial plains. In modern times there has been a move to more convenient lowland locations.

Mountain

In the high mountains and especially in the Alps, there is the contrast between the adrets, the sunny and cultivated valley slopes, and the ubacs, the cold and humid slopes covered with forests. The variety of vegetation on the slopes of the mountains is remarkable. Cultivated fields and grasslands are found in the depths of the valleys, followed in ascending order by orchards on the first sunny embankments, then forests, Alpine pastures, bare rocks, and, finally, permanent snow. A unique aspect of the mountain environment is that Alpine villages of the lower valley sides were often combined with chalets (burons in the Massif Central), temporary dwellings used by those tending flocks on summer pastures above the tree line.

Postwar transformation

After World War II the French government instituted a program of consolidation, whereby the scattered parcels of individual farmers were grouped into larger blocks that would accommodate heavier, mechanized cultivation. Initially progress was greatest in the open-field areas, particularly the Paris Basin, where there were few physical obstacles to the process. Subsequent extension to bocage areas had more severe consequences for landscape values and ecology, as hedges, sunken lanes, and ponds disappeared in favour of a new open landscape. At the same time, the vast numbers of people abandoning agricultural pursuits enormously changed the nature of rural settlement. Particularly in the more attractive areas, abandoned farms were purchased as second homes or for retirement. Where alternative employment was available, rural people stayed and became commuters, transforming barns and stables for other uses, such as garages. On the fringes of the expanding city regions, new houses and housing subdivisions for urban commuters were built in the villages, markedly changing their character.

Urban settlement

The primacy of Paris as the predominant urban centre of France is well known. After World War II the French government had an ambivalent attitude toward the development of the urban structure. On the one hand there was the desire to see Paris emerge as the effective capital of Europe, and on the other there was the policy of creating “métropoles d’equilibre,” through which cities such as Lille, Bordeaux, and Marseille would become growth poles of regional development. Even more evident was the unplanned urbanization of small and medium-size towns related to spontaneous industrial decentralization from Paris, such as that along the Loire valley, or to retirement migration, such as that along the coastlands of southern France.

Demographic trends

Population history

In 1801 France was the most populous nation in Europe, containing about one-sixth of the continent’s inhabitants. By 1936 the French population had increased by 50 percent, but in the same period the number of people in Italy and Germany had nearly trebled, and in the United Kingdom and The Netherlands the population had nearly quadrupled. The marked difference in population growth between France and some of its neighbours up to the 1940s was attributed to a falling birth rate. At the same time, the mortality rate in France began its decline somewhat later than in other advanced European countries, not falling until the close of the 19th century. The birth rate was particularly affected by the practice of French peasants who deliberately limited their families in order to reduce the effect of a Napoleonic law that required the splitting of the family holdings among all heirs. Other factors may have included the rise of bourgeois individualism following the French Revolution of 1789, the decline of Roman Catholic observance (especially among the political left), and the lack of economic opportunity in the interwar years. Population growth was, of course, adversely affected by wars, including the wars of the Revolution; the wars of the First Empire; the Franco-German War (1870–71); World War I (1914–18), which cost France more than 1,500,000 lives; and World War II (1939–45), which reduced the population by 600,000.

The deficit in national growth was so drastic by 1938 that France began to give monetary and other material benefits to families with children. The policy appears to have been effective, because a rise in the birth rate occurred even during the difficult years of Nazi occupation and Vichy France, culminating in the postwar baby boom years, when soldiers and prisoners returned to a climate of economic optimism. The relative youth and high fertility of immigrants also contributed to the upsurge in the birth rate, which was coupled with a decline in mortality rates, attributable to improved public health facilities and social welfare programs.

In the second half of the 20th century, the high birth rate slowed, and about 1974 it fell into a sharp decline, eventually reaching a point insufficient for the long-term maintenance of the population. Since midcentury, because of a corresponding decline in the death rate, the rate of natural increase (balance of births against deaths) has remained positive, though in decline. By the late 1990s France had an average population increase of more than 250,000 people each year. These changes were not exceptional to France; the same postwar pattern was largely paralleled in neighbouring countries. A number of factors combined to reduce the birth rate, among them the introduction of the contraceptive pill and the new preference for smaller families.

Emigration

Unlike many of its neighbours, France has never been a major source of international migrants. In the 17th century, because of religious persecution, France lost more than 400,000 Huguenot refugees—often highly skilled—mainly to Prussia, England, Holland, and America. The same century saw the beginning of emigration; relatively small numbers of emigrants settled at first in North America, notably in eastern Canada (Quebec) and in Louisiana, in certain parts of Latin America that are still départements of France (Martinique, Guadeloupe, and French Guiana), and later in various countries of Africa and Asia that were parts of France’s colonial domain. Since decolonialization, whether forced or voluntary, many have returned to France, but others have remained overseas, either in business or in programs of technical and cultural cooperation in most of the former French territories, notably in Africa. Small numbers of French, especially from Brittany and Normandy, continue to relocate to Canada, and a number of Basques go to Argentina.

Immigration

Intermittently, at least since about 1830 and rather steadily from 1850, there has been a substantial flow of immigrant population into France. France had the reputation into the early 20th century of being the European country most open to immigrants, including political refugees, but this reputation changed in the late 20th century, when opposition rose to continued immigration from Africa. At this time also the countries of the European Union became generally more resistant to the admission of persons claiming political asylum. Most immigration conforms to the economic needs of the host country and tends to be particularly concentrated either in periods of economic growth or after devastating wars. Between 1850 and 1914 about 4.3 million foreigners entered France, and between World Wars I and II nearly 3 million, or 6 percent of the population, came as immigrants. Up to the end of World War I, immigration was free and spontaneous; most of the immigrants came from neighbouring countries, such as Italy, Spain, Belgium, and Switzerland, and they were quickly assimilated into the national population. The slaughter of young men and the devastation of World War I stimulated the government to draw more widely from the reservoirs of foreign manpower. The Italians came in greatest numbers (35 percent), followed by the Poles (20 percent), the Spanish (15 percent), the Belgians (10 percent), and a smaller number of people from central or eastern European countries.

In the years of economic expansion after World War II, when there was an acute labour shortage, immigration again reached a high level. In the first two postwar decades, immigration contributed about 40 percent to the growth of the French population. Although immigration flattened out after 1974, natural increase dropped, so that immigration continued to contribute significantly to population growth. At the end of the century, there were more than three million foreigners resident in France, amounting to some 6 percent of the population, a proportion that had remained constant since 1975. Neighbouring countries such as Portugal, Italy, and Spain continued to be significant contributors, but recent immigrant streams came from North Africa, notably Algeria (an integral part of France until 1962) and the former protectorates of Morocco and Tunisia. Peoples from French or former French territories in Central Africa, Asia, and the Americas provided an additional source of immigrants.

As the numbers of immigrants grew, so did incidents of racial discrimination in housing and employment, as well as social activism among immigrant groups. Initially, immigrants from Africa and the Americas were predominantly males, living in low-standard housing and working in undesirable, low-skilled occupations. As families were progressively reconstituted, immigrants continued to work in jobs that Frenchmen were reluctant to accept. With the beginning of an economic downturn in 1974, though, French workers began to reclaim some of the jobs held by immigrants, and the government began to restrict immigration. Adding to the job competition were approximately one million persons with French citizenship, the so-called pieds-noirs (literally “black feet”), who were repatriated from territories in North Africa decolonized in 1962–64. The policy of restricting immigration remains in force, with the result that in the early 21st century the net annual increase of population from immigration averaged little more than 50,000 people. With the enactment in 1999 of the Amsterdam Treaty in France, many issues of immigration became shared by participating members of the European Union.

Population structure

The aging of the population is common to western Europe, but because of low birth rates it has been observable in France since the beginning of the 19th century. By the end of the 20th century, one-fifth of French citizens were at least 60 years old. The tendency for the proportion of the elderly population to increase also reflects medical advances, which have produced a longer expectation of life. The age structure of the population is of considerable social and economic importance. The steady increase in the proportion of the aged puts an increasing strain on the working population to provide pensions, medical and social services, and retirement housing. The increase in births between 1944 and the mid-1970s, however, brought its own problems, notably the need to rush through a school-building program, followed by the creation of new universities. But this demographically young population also stimulated the economy by creating a greater demand for consumer goods and housing.

Another important aspect of population structure is the proportion of men to women, in society as a whole and in the various age groups. As in most western European countries, women outnumber men in French society and particularly in the older age groups, which is the result of two factors: the wars, which caused the death of a large number of men, and the natural inequality of life expectancy for men and women. A French woman at birth has one of the highest life expectancies in the world (83 years), while a man’s is much lower (75 years), although still relatively high when compared with the world in general. The ratio of men to women in employment is another measure of population structure, and in the late 20th century women steadily increased their share of the job market.

Population distribution

Particularly low population densities are characteristic of the mountain regions, such as the Massif Central, the southern Alps, the Pyrenees, and Corsica, but are also reflected in some lowland rural areas, such as the eastern and southern Paris Basin and large parts of Aquitaine. The four least-populated French régions—Corsica, Limousin, Franche-Comté, and Auvergne—have one-sixteenth of the national population in about one-eighth of the area. By contrast, the four most populated French régions—Île-de-France (Paris region), Rhône-Alpes, Provence–Alpes–Côte d’Azur, and Nord–Pas-de-Calais—have more than two-fifths of the French population in less than one-fifth of the area. Other high-density areas are the industrial cities of Lorraine; isolated large cities, such as Toulouse; and certain small-farm areas, such as coastal Brittany, Flanders, Alsace, and the Limagne basin of Auvergne.

Until about the mid-19th century, rural and urban populations both increased; thereafter there was a marked depopulation of the more remote, mostly mountainous, rural areas and a swing to urban growth. In the space of a century, from the 1860s to the 1960s, rural population decreased by more than one-third, though since that time it has remained constant, numbering 13.6 million in both 1962 and 1999. There were still as many rural as urban inhabitants even up to the period between the two World Wars, but by the 1980s three-fourths of the population was urban, which it currently remains. Postwar rural depopulation was associated with the exodus of labour following the modernization of French agriculture. At the time, rural areas were left with an aging population and low birth rates as the young departed to the cities, especially to the growing industrial régions of Nord–Pas-de-Calais, Lorraine, and Île-de-France.

The massive postwar movement from rural areas to the cities was supplemented by immigration, which also focused on urban areas where employment was available. Because immigrants to the cities tended to be young adults of childbearing age, city dwellers multiplied. Urban population growth in the 30 years after World War II was estimated to be at least 16 million persons. Subsequent urban growth was due in part to expanding city limits and was characterized by urban sprawl, accelerated redistribution from city centres to suburban outskirts, though some rebalancing toward the centre has occurred in recent years.

From about 1975, migratory flows were greatly modified, the most immediate cause being economic. The older industrial régions, such as Nord–Pas-de-Calais and Lorraine, were in decline and had become regions of out-migration. The most dramatic reversal was that of the deindustrialized Île-de-France région; although still the greatest population concentration of France, it had a negative migration balance after 1975. Growth subsequently switched to the south, to the coastlands of Languedoc and of Provence–Alpes–Côte d’Azur; to the west, in the Atlantic régions of Poitou-Charentes and Pays de la Loire; and to the southwest, in the Midi-Pyrénées and Aquitaine régions. These shifts reflect a combination of economic decentralization, retirement migration, sunbelt industrialization, changing residential preferences, and expanding tourism. Population increase has also been strong on the southern and western fringes of the Paris Basin, favoured for industrial decentralization from the Île-de-France région.

Since World War II, urban growth in France has been accompanied by marked suburbanization. This trend was initiated much earlier in Paris, a densely built-up city that leveled off at a maximum population of about 2.8 million in the period 1911–54 and declined thereafter. Proportionately the decline set in much earlier: in 1876 the city of Paris had 60 percent of the population of what was to become the Île-de-France région; in 1921, 51 percent; in 1954, 39 percent; and in 1999, 19 percent. The century after 1850 witnessed the rise of the industrialized inner suburbs (the petite couronne) outside the walls of the city. There maximum population was reached in the 1970s, followed by a decline associated with a marked degree of deindustrialization. Since the 1980s, population growth has been concentrated in the outer Paris suburbs (grande couronne), which by 1999 accounted for 44 percent of the total population of the Île-de-France région, compared with 37 percent in the declining inner suburbs.

In the first half of the 20th century, suburban growth, where it did occur, was not the result of middle-class suburbanization, as it was in the United States and the United Kingdom. It was the working class and the lower middle classes that moved out, while higher-income groups endeavoured to maintain a foothold in central Paris. In the postwar period, however, suburbanization took increasingly middle-class forms, with the building up of satellite low-density subdivisions known as “new villages.” Similar postwar suburbanization occurred in cities such as Marseille, Lyon, Lille, and Bordeaux.

Increasingly, the most rapid population growth is relegated to small towns and nominally rural communes on the expanding fringes of the city regions. This dispersal of population is associated with an increasing length of daily commuter movements, with all their human disadvantages, as well as other problems of urban sprawl. Vacation travel, very popular among the French, involves the movement of crowds of people during the peak seasons, particularly during school vacations and in August, when many people take their paid holiday and leave the city. Transport facilities and popular vacation spots become saturated, especially the coastal areas and mountains.